Product coming out of the ground typically contains oil, but the oil is part of an emulsification comprising oil, dissolved gas, water, and other miscellaneous ingredients. The well owners typically desire transporting only the oil and gas components of the mix for further remote processing, such as at a refinery. It is generally more efficient to remove the oil and gas components from the emulsification or product at the site of the wellhead, and sell the separated oil and gas.
Currently, there are several methods used for the purpose of heating and separating oil, gas, and BS&W (a mixture of debris or basic sediment and water found in the product). The equipment used in this process typically burns natural gas.
Three-phase high pressure gas separators, such as seen in FIGS. 1 and 2 (prior art), are sometimes used. These burn natural gas in a fire tube and typically use fresh water or other suitable fluid as a heat exchange medium between the fire tube and a coil bearing product which is passed over the fire tube and immersed in the fresh water. This three-phase high pressure separator typically is employed at the wellhead site and separates the product received from the wellhead typically as an emulsion into produced water which may be drained off or reinjected, produced oil which may be removed or stored for further processing and sale, and produced gas which may be sold (see prior art FIGS. 1 and 2).
Heater Treaters are also known as low pressure separators and are illustrated in FIGS. 3, 4, and 4A (prior art). Here natural gas fuels a fire box at the base of a vertical column containing product. The dense water settles at the bottom and is drawn off, the gas moving upward in the column is driven out of a stack near the top of the heated inner column (see FIGS. 3, 4, and 4A). FIG. 3 shows a photograph of an in-line heater onsite somewhere in Texas, in conjunction with a water knockout system separator and Heater Treater. FIG. 4 is an illustration of a typical Heater Treater.
There are a number of disadvantages to the current separation methods. These include high fuel cost. Companies spend millions of dollars to separate the product with conventional methods. This also wastes natural resources wherein large volumes of natural gas are burned to keep the fluids heated in the separation vessel. There are also harmful emissions associated with the prior art historical methods of site location separators, including burning gas producing carbon emissions into the earth's atmosphere. Finally, there are safety concerns in that the flame to burn the natural gas may be dangerous and has in the past created conflagrations at the wellhead site, fueled by the product itself.